Puerto Rican in Dallas

Chef Marko Ramirez-Pursley, who is from Puerto Rico, graduated from culinary school in Costa Rica and started his food truck, El Chifrijo, in his hometown in 2015. He often set up his truck near a beach with tall palm trees arching overhead. He had a booming beachside business until 2017, when Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

Two months later, with Puerto Rico facing a long and complicated recovery, Marko moved to Dallas to start over. He got a job at the Dallas Farmers Market while living in a small one-bedroom apartment with four other Puerto Ricans and two dogs.

As of 2023, he has a bustling food truck business serving some of the best Puerto Rican fare in the city. Start with an order of the empanadas, which comes in single or double packs. Choose between a hearty empanada — stuffed with meat, cheese and sweet plantains — or a vegetarian option. Both offer a crispy pastry fried to a golden caramel color that quickly flakes when bitten into. Inside the flavors are a mix of sweet, savory, tangy and everything in between with an ideal crust-to-filling ratio.

El Chifrijo's Puerto Rican nachos come with a slightly caramelized blend of roasted meat or vegetables, dotted with avocado cubes, pico de gallo and sweet peppers. It's served with fried plantain chips incorporating uniquely Puerto Rican flavors into an American classic. El Chifrijo’s nachos successfully capture the same crunch that makes the American version so popular. The address listed is Klyde Warren Park, but be sure to check their website for daily locations.

This restaurant is named after one of Puerto Rico’s most popular dishes, Mofongo. It’s a mound of fried mashed plantain stuffed with pork rinds, seafood or a combination of all of them. This Puerto Rican dish culture spawned from a combination of African, Taino (the natives) and European ancestry that continued to blend long after slavery there was abolished. It’s very similar to island neighbors in the Dominican Republic who call this mangu. This mofongo is like opening a time capsule of flavors from the island’s deep tumultuous past. The Spaniards imported the beef and pork, the Taino lived on a diet of corn and seafood, and the enslaved Africans brought with them vegetables like okra, ackee and beans. Pernil (roasted pork shoulder) with fried plantain is a must if you visit the restaurant. The carne or chuela frita are very tasty but fried hard, which reminds me of the West African method of cooking. Puerto Rican food is not spicy at all but is packed with various flavors you may not be accustomed to.